Applying Linked Open Data: Refining a Model of Data Sharing as Publication

To support: The further development of a platform and refinement of workflows to store, describe, and publish archeological datasets, using an initial collection of data related to trade and exchange patterns in the ancient Near East and East Mediterranean.

Twenty-first century humanistic research has unprecedented opportunities to advance new models of scholarly communication together with new data-driven avenues of investigation. This project will help establish "data sharing as publication" as a scalable and professionally-valued model for the dissemination of humanistic research data. The project will develop case studies involving cross-collections research on trade and exchange in the Ancient Near East and East Mediterranean. In developing publishing workflows toward Linked Open Data, the project will help align the needs of the research profession with rapidly expanding capabilities of the Web of Data.

To support: The creation of the Gazetteer of the Ancient Near East, a geospatial index of archaeological sites and ancient historical places in the Near East, through the use of the Pleiades project software.

This grant will support the creation of the Gazetteer of the Ancient Near East. The project’s goal is to develop an authoritative, open access geospatial index of archaeological sites and historical places in the Near East, spanning some twelve thousand years (c. 12,500-600 BCE). The project is based on software developed by the Pleiades project (http://pleiades.stoa.org/), an extant and successful model for open access Web-based gazetteers. By developing a gazetteer of Ancient Near East places, researchers will be able to link events, persons, and archaeological evidence through shared notions of place and time. Thus, this project will help scholars to bring together disparate lines of historical and archaeological evidence. In doing so, this project represents critically needed infrastructure to catalyze research in the Ancient Near East and serves as an exemplar for open, collaborative scholarship.